COMPLETED PAINTING!

Just did a couple little 'final touches' to this watercolor of cliffs in Capitol Reef National Park.  It's fairly long and it's a trapezoid shape: 30" x 10" x 8".  It's going above our dining table where the ceiling of the trailer is sloped.  Can't wait to get it affixed to the wall!  It feels so good to be painting again, and there's so much subject matter everywhere we go! 

ROAD RASH: ZION NATIONAL PARK

Does this disgust you?  Yes, it's TP -- in the bushes at a pull-out along the road through Zion National Park.  We spotted this, along with a number of other piles of discarded wipe, when hiking in the Park last weekend. 
LADIES: when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.  But PLEASE carry a small zip bag (and hand sanitizer) along with your TP or tissues and take your wipe home with you.  It takes years for it to disintegrate in this arid climate, and it's just not fun for anyone to stumble on to anywhere!  Gents, this goes for you too -- leave only footprints!  Anything else is 'crappy', no pun intended.

GOOD MORNING FROM HURRICANE UTAH!

We witnessed this beautiful scene of the sun and clouds on the mountain cliffs in the distance, as see from our 'office' window in our trailer.  The sunsplashed cliffs are far to the northwest; they also have a dusting of snow.  At the bottom you can see the near cliffs, which are a lovely golden-red. 
How sweet it is to have a new beautiful view every time we move to a new location! 

We're loving Hurricane; it's a small town with all the services we need and the weather is pretty darn nice.  We did have a cold front move through, brought day-time highs down to the 60s and lows in the 40s.  But the sun is shining here and a huge high front is settling in with much warmer temperatures in the forecast.

ENJOYING THE MEMORY

Found time to finish the painting of cloud-shrouded mountains, meandering stream, and blooming fireweed along the road between Lake Louise and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies.  It was such a lovely scene and I'm so lucky to be able to paint it and mount it on the wall in our trailer!

Another PIP (Painting in Progress)

When we were in the Canadian Rockies this summer, driving from Banff to Jasper, the mountains were shrouded in clouds and just incredible! I finally started a painting of a scene where we stopped for the view. The pictures are my PIP (painting in progress) and the reference photo. I'll post more when as the painting progresses.

LAST MORNING VISUAL

The morning we left Bluff Utah to head to Hurricane UT we were treated to the Hunter's Moon setting over the cliffs to the west, just at daybreak. What a delightful lasting memory of our visit to the Bluff area!

MOVIN' ON . . .

Arrived in Hurricane Utah late Sunday Oct. 20th. I already miss the SE Utah Canyon Country and am sorry to be gone from there. However, we need to spend a little time in a 'center of commerce' and get some things done, so here we are! We're in a big RV park with lots of old people. Luckily we have a spot on the edge of the park with a view of the hills out our back window & no trailers within 'pass the grey poupon' distance! 

 

Really good news is there's a fine local grocery 1/2 block away and they have wonderful fresh produce -- something we've sorely missed in the tiny little towns where we've been the past 5-6 weeks. We had a huge salad for lunch and dinner tonight is tofu with snow peas, bok choy, crimini mushrooms, sweet red pepper, fresh ginger, and bean sprouts.  I cannot wait to throw that together!

 

I finished my painting of the cliffs in Capitol Reef National Park the other day and will take photos and post soon; I'm about to start on a smaller piece from the Canadian Rockies, south of Jasper — feeling wonderful to be back at my painting after a very long dry spell.

SLICKROCK FRICTION-CLIMB

Yesterday we climbed the back side of Comb Ridge.  The Ridge is a tremendous monocline extending over 80 miles  north to south, from west of Blanding to southwest of Bluff; a monocline is drastically uptilted ridge.  The climb was steep, and about 2 miles to the ridge where we could look down on Comb Wash and Valley [with Cedar Mesa in the background] on one side and Butler Wash Valley on the other side.  It was quite a hike but well worth it!

Jamie at the edge of Comb Ridge, looking over the Comb Wash Valley; Cedar Mesa is just visible in the far background.

Me at same spot as Jamie above,  but the view is Butler Wash valley.

Me again, this time overlooking Comb Wash & Cedar Mesa.

This shot overlooking Comb Ridge valley was taken from the edge of the monocline; it's a sheer drop-off of at least 700 feet, probably more.

 In this shot I angled my camera to align with the angle of the rock face along the ridge.

This is the edge of Comb Ridge, at the lower end.  Notice the background appears hazy; that's the pollution from the power plant at Page Arizona.

Looking down on Comb Wash valley, with the sand 4wd road winding through -- an interesting drive!

Another view of the Comb Wash basin:

ANASAZI RUINS

We've spent some time exploring around Bluff Utah, visiting Ancient Puebloan ruins: dwellings and petroglyphs & pictographs.  The area was obviously highly populated, and there are ruins in almost all the cliffs and canyons.  It's quite fascinating!  Unfortunately, due to the horribly heavy rains of September (2nd wettest in history here) we haven't been able to access as many as we'd hoped--roads are impassible and washes have too much water & slimy mud to hike across. 

We did find this ruin in Lower Butler Wash, across the wash in the lee of the backside of Comb Ridge.  This is a fairly typical cliff dwelling.  (shot the pic from the ledge in the foreground; there's a sheer drop-off just in front of me)

The petroglyphs (carvings in stone walls) of Sand Island just outside the town of Bluff are large and very well-preserved.  The carvings date from 300 to 3,000 years ago. 

Some theories are that 'gods from outer space' populated the area with the ancient cliff dwellers -- can you see what appears to be two spaceships with people nearby?

space ships?

The carving below seems to illustrate a basketball player, dribbling the ball:

ancient basketball

 This is probably one of the more recent carvings as it appears to be a cowboy astride his horse.

recent carving of cowboy

 There are numerous Kokopelli carved in these panels.  The flute player deity symbolized happiness, fertility, and mystery.  Most carvings include a huge phallus, with the flute mimicking the phallic symbol -- we rarely see this in recent reproductions although it is believe to be one of the more important characteristics of the symbol.

anatomically-correct Kokopelli

 See the figure at the top of this panel?  The carving is high on a sheer rock wall; we think this figure is the artist's self-portrait as he surely must have been something of a monkey.

self-portrait of artist? (high on panel)

GOOD MORNING FROM THE DESERT SOUTHWEST

We moved from Blanding Utah, which is on the mesa, to Bluff Utah, which is below the mesa, yesterday afternoon.  Staying in a darling little RV park called 'Cadillac Ranch'; only 14 rv spaces + some tent camping across a pond.  We'll be here for the week and will explore a bunch of places the 'locals' know about -- more ancient and recent Indian ruins and some great hiking in washes, gulches, and the incredible huge rock formations of the Valley of the God .  The rv park is surrounded by towering sandstone cliffs, i.e. Bluffs.  Here's some pictures taken from outside our trailer this morning.

INCREDIBLE SUNSET

We were having a glass of wine before dinner last night and noticed the start of what would become an awesome sunset.  The pollution from the power plant at Page AZ has been bad in the low-lands the past few days and combined with clouds makes for 'fire in the sky'.  These shots were taken right outside our trailer, which is currently hanging out at the Blue Mountain RV park in Blanding Utah.

REUNION

Saturday October 5th we took a long drive from Blanding Utah to the southern rim of Grand Gulch, on Cedar Mesa.  The sand road from the blacktop was in rough shape after the recent rains so we took it slow & easy -- happy to report the F250 pickup did just fine.  Total drive time from the RV park to our old favorite camp site on the canyon rim was just over 2 hours!  You won't get the true sense of the place from these photos, but imagine slickrock walls and fascinating rock formations as far as you can see, interrupted by canyons hundreds [thousands?] of feet deep.  We've tent camped here several times and have hiked miles & miles & miles along the rims, into side canyons, and up & down & across.  It's one of those places that takes my breath away and never grows old.  Enjoy!

ANASAZI RUINS HIKES

Wonderful weekend: perfect weather and great hiking.  Late Friday we hiked to the Five Kiva Pueblo just outside Blanding, a fairly well-preserved cliff dwelling that you can actually go into.  This whole side canyon has remnants of the Ancient Puebloan culture.  Apparently someone has a restoration project, as evidenced by the recent artifacts.

Sunday we hiked Upper Butler Wash, where there a number of very well-preserved cliff dwellings.  The wash/canyon itself is narrow and lovely with cliffs on either side and cottonwood trees and other vegetation in the canyon floor.  This wash must flash-flood dramatically with the September rains.

A PAINTING DAY :-)

A storm front is moving through southeast Utah and we have high winds, but otherwise sunny & warm.  Good day to get back to the painting I started last week.  This is my progress on the cliffs in Capitol Reef National Park.

Tomorrow is supposed to be quite chilly (high of 48), but no precipitation here.  Laundry and grocery shopping are done, business things taken care of, and plenty of time to paint.  I'll post my progress again tomorrow afternoon or evening. 

Obama Care or the Affordable Care Act?????

Apparently many people think these are two different health care acts; apparently most people (70-80%) think the ACA (affordable care act) is and will be good for them, but many others (46% according to latest polls -- not the 58% Republicans claim) are opposed to Obama Care.  HUH?

If you want to check how the ACA, or 'ObamaCare' as it is commonly called, will affect you and your family, go to HealthLawAnswers.org  What we found on this site was nothing but positive for us.

Shut Down and Shut Out

Thanks to the inept folks in congress, we and many others are not able to visit the wonderful national parks here in Utah. It's a huge impact on tourism income, as well as personal income, in this state.

We feel real lucky we hadn't driven over 2 hours on gravel roads and settled in the campground at Canyonlands National Park (as planned), only to get turned back or kicked out -- that happened all over the place! We have a spot at a nice RV park in Blanding and are staying until Sunday, when we move down the road a bit farther.

While the parks' closing is a negative impact to so many, it's certainly a 'nonessential' government service, albeit a very nice amenity that we've come to take for granted.  Too bad we can't say the same about affordable, quality healthcare!